title: Cleanup of industrial effluents containing heavy metals: a new opportunity of valorising the biomass produced by brewing industry.
abstract: Heavy metal pollution is a matter of concern in industrialised countries. Contrary to organic pollutants, heavy metals are not metabolically degraded. This fact has two main consequences: its bioremediation requires another strategy and heavy metals can be indefinitely recycled. Yeast cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae are produced at high amounts as a by-product of brewing industry constituting a cheap raw material. In the present work, the possibility of valorising this type of biomass in the bioremediation of real industrial effluents containing heavy metals is reviewed. Given the auto-aggregation capacity (flocculation) of brewing yeast cells, a fast and off-cost yeast separation is achieved after the treatment of metal-laden effluent, which reduces the costs associated with the process. This is a critical issue when we are looking for an effective, eco-friendly, and low-cost technology. The possibility of the bioremediation of industrial effluents linked with the selective recovery of metals, in a strategy of simultaneous minimisation of environmental hazard of industrial wastes with financial benefits from reselling or recycling the metals, is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Bioengineering Laboratory-CIETI, Chemical Engineering Department, ISEP-School of Engineering of Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Rua Dr António Bernardino de Almeida, 431, 4200-072, Porto, Portugal. evs@isep.ipp.pt
authors.forename: Eduardo V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Soares
authors.forename: Helena M V M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Soares
mesh_terms: D001515:Beer; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D018533:Biomass; D019649:Food Industry; D007220:Industrial Waste; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000302:isolation & purification; D062065:Wastewater / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D007220:Industrial Waste; D019216:Metals, Heavy; D062065:Wastewater